A Long Engagement: Charting the dynamics and emotions of long-term Chinese language learning within and beyond the tertiary context

 Dr Isabel Tasker

Thursday 18 September 4.10pm, Arts Lecture Theatre 3, Arts Building E11

Refreshments to follow until 6pm, LG1

Everyone welcome

As studying Chinese rapidly gains popularity, headlines such as Time Magazine’s “Get Ahead! Learn Mandarin!” exemplify developing neoliberal discourses which position proficiency in Mandarin as a commodity to be acquired as quickly and efficiently as possible, “a key skill for people hitching their futures to China’s economic rise”. However, there is another story to be told about learning Chinese, as a long, complex, journey undertaken and sustained for personal and emotional reasons. This paper draws upon a 5-year multiple tiered qualitative case study of adult long-term learners of Mandarin Chinese as an additional language. Adopting a longitudinal perspective, I examine the interweaving by individual learners of different episodes, modes and contexts of learning over many years. I will demonstrate graphically the complex variety of ways in which the threads of formal institutionally-based study, distance education, self-directed learning, and informal language use are picked up, dropped and intertwined. Against this backdrop, individuals’ shifting identities and desires as learners and users of Chinese will be traced. Beyond the languages sphere, the timeline method presented can inform analysis of patterns of participation in tertiary distance education courses, and offers an alternative to institutionally-based views of ‘attrition’.